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10 Dec 2016 3:06:18am

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I find Professor Archer's idea interesting. I doubt very much that living in any way can be done without harming sentient beings in one form or another.

However, looking at Professor Archer's statement about the production of pulses and legumes, I must aske whether the Professor's study factored in the amount of grain needed to produce meat versus the amount of grain needed for direct human consumption.

In terms of resource usage, meat constitutes an inefficient way of imparting proteins and energy, because of the numerous conversions of material and energy required.

A sheep eats grain and grass and must convert that to meat and energy.

Humans eat, say, lamb shanks, extracting nutrients.

Yet how much energy is lost in the extra stages of energy and matter conversion?

How much extra land must be cleared in order to produce the many resources that that sheep requires to produce its meat, above and beyond what would be required were we to eat the grain directly?

I do not deny that my vegetarian diet kills animals. I feel sad for that, but it is unavoidable. Living creates death, and in my view, is death. Life and death are the same thing.

We have imported mice into this country, as we did rabbits and foxes.

However, my choice to eat lentils or garbanzos or soya beans in lieu of lamb or beef or pork inflicts considerably less suffering than would an omnivorous diet.

The meat industry uses arable land, water and other limited resources in a manner which is far less efficient than does the grain-for-human-consumption industry.

And the mice must pay a heavier price for it as well. More grain production must obviously result in more mice being killed per human meal of meat, than would result on a per human meal of grain basis.

Did Professor Archer factor these issues into making his claims?

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